Camping Change

My spouse and I had a camping trip to the northeast part of the state for a few days.  Every camping trip shares similarities with past camping excursions, but each also presents its own unique set of circumstances, or events.  This trip we had mainly nice, sunny, but relatively warm to hot weather.  We had our share of mosquitoes, black flies, an encounter with poison ivy along a trail, the well pump from which we got water being closed due to e-coli contamination the day after we obtained water from it, and various other travails that make camping an experience.  Yet, the negatives were more than made up by the reasons one camps on a lake in northern Wisconsin.  We saw the ubiquitous chipmunks, but also saw loons, and eagles.  And, for much of the time it was peaceful and relaxing. The last time we camped at this campground on Laura Lake was over eight years ago, and I think we had the site we occupied on that trip eight years ago.  Yes, there are similarities, but there are also differences in camping we now see.

Laura Lake from our Campsite

Laura Lake Campground is in the Chequmegon-Nicolet National Forest about 30 miles east of Crandon, WI. On past trips we had seen loons and eagles, and luckily we were able to be awed by both on this trip.  The best chance to view such wildlife was from the kayak, as the eagles congregated on the shore opposite the campground.  On two different occasions I came across an eagle perched sentinely near the top of a tree on the opposite shore, where I was amazed at how long it stayed.  Sometimes it would call out to another eagle who would respond.  

Laura Lake from our the hiking trail

If one thought the eagles were active, the loons were more so, coming to the midpoint of the lake, if not closer to the campground side.  Again, the kayak served me well in getting a good view of the loons.  A few times I was within 20 feet of two loons, one which likely had a baby (or babies) on its back between and below its wings (at least that is what another kayaker told me).  On one excursion the loons and I were playing chicken, I would start going one way to avoid and get around them and they would turn to start the same direction. This game had its benefits of me getting closer the loons that I had otherwise planned.  A kayak does not stop on a dime. On this same excursion the loon that likely had the baby tucked on its back was heading one way, and the other (probably the male) was heading in a slightly different direction.  The female, made a few calls and the male then headed with her in the same direction.  This showed me similarities to human behavior, as any reader of my post dealing entitled "Traits", which in part dealt with the "Wife App" would recognize.  

View of tree canopy from the Hammock 

Yes, I would have been able to get some amazing photos, if I had taken the camera with a telephoto lens along.  However, as my wife well knows, my middle name is "Careful," and I did not wish the risk of attempting to kayak across a lake with such an expensive piece of equipment hanging around my neck.  However, the solitude with the loons and eagles (many times I was the only one on the lake) is perhaps best left to my mind and as my experience.  A photo, even if a video, could not do justice to the unique moments encountered.  Some encounters, like the eagle soaring off one tree to another along the shore, are best left to memory.  However, while at the swimming area of next door Gordon Lake, I was able to  wade into the water and get photos of loons enjoying a water excursion.  

My wife kayaking on Laura Lake

The lakes, and vegetation were still in good condition, likely due to so much forest land within the watershed.  But, things have changed at this campground.  First, they now accept reservations for over half of the total sites at the campground.  A person who reserved a site can even claim a non-reservable site if it is open, which leads one to wonder when their reserved site becomes available.  We got the last water site, upon our arrival at about 11:30 am on Thursday by beating out a car ahead of us, as I backed up to claim the site, while they, pulling a supply trailer, had to go around the one-way loop. The total campground only had a few unclaimed sites on Thursday night, Sunday saw a great deal of  turn over of sites, and while the non-lake side had fewer campers, lake sites on our loop were full by the afternoon.  Our first trip to Laura Lake years ago we stayed past Sunday and were the only camper that night on that loop.  The campground is now much busier.

Sun rise over Laura Lake

People, we noticed also camp differently.  First, there are many more camper trailers than tents or pop-ups, and there are also many who bring two (or more vehicles).  The stuff people take, and I thought we camped heavy.  Some campsites occupied by only two persons had two trucks--one to pull the camper and another to pull a boat. We also saw a vehicle pulling a camper of which was followed by a boat.  One reason I like Laura Lake is that there are no lake homes, and motor boating is not allowed.  There were families with parents and two children who would also bring a truck and an SUV. Camping has changed.  As my wife said the main noise we used to hear was the occasional car door and zippers on a screen tent or sleeping tent.  Today the noise is markedly different.   From Thursday through Saturday night our loop was full, but only one on our loop ran a generator.  Sunday that changed.  From about 2 pm until after 8:15 pm there were one or more generators running to charge the power systems for those big camping trailers. Our neighbor, who arrived early Sunday afternoon, ran his at least three times during a six hour span.  What a way to destroy the solitude of the camping experience.  Have we become so used to creature comforts that many cannot camp without air conditioning, television, or other accommodations we make to every day life?  Perhaps some even wrote a daily blog account of their trip.  If not, they were likely making daily Facebook posts.  Even at Laura Lake you can get one or two bars of Verizon service.  

Sun set reflecting a purple colored cloud on Laura Lake

We all enjoy the comfort of home.  But do you have to take it with you?  My wife and I did not get a shower until Wednesday of the following week.  We did have nice clean lake water in which to jump in to cool off and get some sweat off.  My wife also noted how much easier it is for men to camp--we can take our shirt off to wash up, and of course men do not necessarily need the privy to pee. We noticed few of the camper trailer persons making use of the campground privy, most having used in their indoor accommodations.  Of course, a trailer with restroom facilities makes it easier to get up in the middle of the night when nature calls.  

What is camping without a campfire?

If I was in a trailer, however, I likely would not have noticed, when I was awakened, the beautiful moon gleaming through the trees and on to the lake from the open door on the tent rain fly on Thursday and Friday nights. One benefit of tent camping. While the generators destroyed the solitude of the campground, I have to admit it was the noise of the generators that drove me to the kayak on that late Sunday afternoon. It was on this kayak trip where I played chicken with the pair of loons--an experience that I will have with me for sometime to come.  The camping experience is what you make of it, and for me, at this point in my life, I prefer to keep it more simple than comfortable.

Loon on Gordon Lake

Tsunami

It was on July 21, 365 AD that a large earthquake, triggered a series of aftershocks that wreaked havoc on the Mediterranean, and beyond.  The epicenter is known to be just off the west coast of Crete. Many in the region thought it the end of the world.  However, this post will focus primarily on one known city, affected by that event, and the consequences to the world at that time.  Alexandria, which was established by the Greek Conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 BC, is well recognized for a few things.  First, it was home to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the light house located on the island of Faros.  Second, was the great library having been located in that city.  Finally, is its mentioned in present time popular movies—two examples come to mind; it is noted as the starting location to find the Holy Grail, in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and is also noted as providing some of the underground treasure from the Knights Templar and the Mason’s located deep under New York in the movie National Treasure. 

Ancient City of Alexandria 

Alexandria was a treasure to Egypt and saw its greatest rise during the reign of Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s lieutenants, and an ancestor to Cleopatra.  It was during this period that the city replaced Memphis as the capital, and when patronage was provided to increase support for the ruling regime.  One method of patronage was in scholarship and learning. It was through this that the library grew to be one of the most famous at that time in the world.  The library and its contents are now lost to history, except for those found by Benjamin Franklin Gates below the bowels of New York in National Treasure.  How the library was lost, is a matter of speculation, but it may be related to the series of cataclysmic events which struck Alexandria. 

Scene from National Treasure Movie

The city is thought to have been affected by over 25 earthquakes over the course of time.  It susceptibility to earthquakes is likely attributed to it being built on sediment deposits of the Nile River.  Tsunamis were associated with some, but not all of the earthquakes.  The great light house was not thought to be affected by the 365 event, but was thought to be affected by earthquakes in 796, 950 to 956, 1261 and the final event In 1303 which completely destroyed the famed structure.  Given the level of havoc by the 365 event, it is a wonder the light house was not affected.  Clearly the island of Faros and its adjoining man-made causeway did little to protect the city from the Tsunami, and its waves thought to travel at 500 mph.  The historian and recorder of the time, Ammianus Marcellinus noted the following of the 365 event:

The sea as driven backwards, so as to recede from the land, and the very depths were uncovered, so that many marine animals were left sticking in the mud.  And the depths of its valleys and recesses of the hills, which from the very first origin of all things had been lying beneath the boundless waters, now beheld the beams of sun.  Many ships were stranded on the dry shore, while people straggling about the shoal water picked up fishes and things of that kind in their hands.  In another quarter the waves, as if raging against the violence which they had been driven back, rose and swelling over the boiling shallows, beat upon the islands and the extended coasts of the mainland, leveling cities and houses wherever the encountered them.  All the elmetns were in furious discord, and the whole face of the world seemed turned upside down, revealing the most extraordinary sights. 

Marcellinus would go on describe the death of thousands, and of ships in the harbor having been thrown inland, some up to two miles as a result of the cataclysm of 365 .  Many of the towns would not recover from this event.  One geologist believes the quake was about 8.3 in magnitude.  By comparison the 2011 quake in Japan, was 9.0.  however, he does not believe the quake near Crete was able to cause such large waves in Alexandria, so it is very likely, that the Crete quake triggered other quakes on fault lines in the sea which produced the Tsunami.  Some believe the destruction was caused not by one, but two Tsunamis.  This would assist the theory of more than one quake having occurred.  The split in the earth would also yield a political split on earth.

Image of possible appearance of the Library

Thirty years later saw the Roman Empire split in two with eastern and western sections.  This would forever change world history with the advent of the Byzantine empire, and the decline of the western Roman Empire.  While not having much direct affect it likely had some effect on the split and the continuation of civilization as it was known.  Many cities and towns along the sea coast were not rebuilt and within three generations (about 64 years) Vandals had invaded the Roman settlements of North Africa and would soon control all of the former North African portions of the once great empire.  Yet, the fourth century produced great thinkers such as St. Augustine, and St. Jerome, and it produced wealth.  One historian has referred to the fourth century as an age  of wealth, even as the empire was in decline.  The Roman Empire would end 111 years after this event.  As high as the Roman elite lived in the fourth century, many would see a decline in the fifth.  The end of the empire was at hand, through measured disintegration in military, and political powers.

Ancient Port of Alexandria, destroyed in 365

The end of the library of Alexandria is not known, but it was likely not caused by one event, as most seem to speculate.  Some believe it accidently was set ablaze by Julius Caesar during the siege of Alexandria in 48 BC, but that is discounted.  Some say it was destroyed by Christians in 391, but they destroyed a pagan temple not near the library; others believe it was during the Muslim conquest in the 5^th or 6^th century, but one citation lacks collaboration.  Historians cannot set a date of its destruction, much less a cause.  As one person suggested it may have declined due to a loss  in economic wealth.  Having been founded to create patronage and honor to Ptolemy, it may well have suffered neglect over time once that regime fell out of favor.  What no one mentions is the possibility of natural disaster having affected the library.  The account of Marcellinus would show that much of the city was affected and it is thought that the material of the scrolls was not well suited to the climate of the Alexandria.  The theory of gradual decline and the theory of natural events are not necessarily incompatible.  The two may have been related.  Flooding may have led to loss of records, and loss of care.  This too could affect wealth and ability to rebuild.  If not fully destroyed by the Tsunami, it may well have been affected.  This, with the power center of the world having moved to Rome with the conquest by Caesar, may have led the library to a death through the neglect of man, and/or the advance of nature. 

Image of potential appearance of light house

What we do know is that the earth is not static.  Natural events occur that change our landscape and habitat and in so doing may well effect our political and cultural endeavors and institutions.  The great empire of Rome was not immune from natural and political effects, nor is the western civilization of today.  There will be other major events, beyond Katrina, and beyond Fukushima.  There will be governments that find themselves dealing with strife.  There will be poor to feed and homeless to shelter.  Yet, there have been many times were mankind and cultures have survived great disasters that could otherwise tear a country apart. 

 Images from Google

Artist Adversity

It was on this date, 410 years ago or on July 15, 1606 that a man was born who would become recognized by his first name. Rembrandt van Rijn, the highly regarded Dutch painter was born in Leiden. The son of a miller and his wife, Rembrandt started painting at a young age and by age 22 was sufficiently skilled and accomplished to take on his own students while still in Leiden. But, like most routes in our existence on earth, Rembrandt’s life had its ups and its downs.

Rembrandt, self -portrait

Rembrandt was taught by various teachers, but one teacher in his early years would stand out. That teacher was Pieter Lastman. Lastman would go on to interest Rembrandt in biblical, mythological, and historical themes. However, his early years were also influenced to a great deal by the Italian painter Caravaggio (b 1571, d 1610) particularly in the use of shadow and light. For the most part of his career, Rembrandt was a portraitist. And, not just of others, as over the course of his life he would paint nearly 100 self-portraits. In 1631, he left the town in which he was born and raised and move to Amsterdam. It is here that he would achieve his greatest fame and success as a portrait painter. However, also in the 1630’s the influence of Lasterman would be shown in his etchings of a varied biblical subjects. Perhaps one of the best known, at least according to one source, is his Annunciation to the Shepherds (1634). By this time he himself had become a prominent teacher, with a large number of students and a good number of assistants. It would not be an understatement to say that he was enjoying a great deal of success.

Annunciation to the Shepherds

However, the pendulum of success would swing the other way, as a series of events would form a near perfect storm that affected him personally. First, portraitures started to go out of style and the demand for his work in painting high-class portraits was reduced. Popular tastes in art change. Certainly one only needs to look at the work of Rembrandt and compare it to the modern art of today to know the changing nature of art. Popular tastes in painting, according to a source reviewed, also changed and his use of darkness, shadow and light was being replaced by detail and refinement. Rembrandt, it has been reported at the time, was criticized for his work as being “course and indecorous.” Second, even as his income declined due to changing public tastes, Rembrandt kept up the lavish and extravagant lifestyle which he had developed in the years of his growing success. This lifestyle, combined with his own art collecting, would lead him to bankruptcy in 1656. Finally, were events which combined to darken his existence: the 1642 death of his wife, the later death of his mistress and the death in 1668 of his only son.

Night Watch

However, many believe that the 1640’s, in spite of, or in my view because of, the personal adversity he faced, he would paint some of the most highly regarded masterpieces of his life. Think of what we call The Night Watch (formally known as The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq) produced in 1642, or his etching Christ Healing the Sick (1643-1649). The latter is an interesting choice of etching started the year after his wife’s death, and may be a telling manner of his expression of grief. The 1650’s to 1660’s saw him produce works that many today claim are his best. Art is in the eye of the beholder, and while the change in views of art led to his decline in business in the 1640’s to 1650’s, that does not mean that some present time, or future time eyes would not enjoy what he produced. That is part of the greatness of the irony of art, there may be little appreciation in the artist’s own life time, but more so after the artist’s death. Yet, at this time he produced some of his greatest works at this low time of his life. As a painter, he continued even as death and financial destruction was about him. The greatest part of his success may not be that he produced great works of art during this time, but that he was able to overcome adversity to do so. The dark nights he faced did not affect his output, and perhaps the time frame even emboldened him.

Chirst Healing the Sick

The character of a person is not just in how they handle success, but also in who they handle the low points in their life. Art, to Rembrandt, was not just the way he made his living, but was his version of comfort food. It was his diversion of the troubled times that he experienced for the last almost three decades of his life, until his death in 1669. When facing the trials of his life he produced some of his highest recognized and well-regarded works. I like to see think that his genius came through in the dark times of his life, and well that may not have been the case, whatever it was, we today live with the art he produced.  Was he the first to wear the now ever popular artist beanie?

Images from Google

Water Irony, part 2

A prior post dealt with city of Waukesha and its having once been a recognized water resort community, due to the springs that were in the area. The irony, or sad situation now faced by Waukesha, is that because of the radium in its groundwater supply it will be obtaining water from Lake Michigan. The Waukesha water woes story should be of interest to others as we inhabit a world of decreasing natural resources. This post will deal with how land use affects ground water and the situation now faced by Waukesha.

Hydrologic cycle

Waukesha Is no longer a suburb of Milwaukee. It has developed as an employment center in its own right. Torben Lutgen, a visiting professor at the UW-Madison from Germany says that Waukesha’s success has transformed it into a “politically and culturally exceptional place.” Based on US Census data, he says that almost as many vehicles now “commute into Waukesha County from Milwaukee County as the other way around.” I suspect 50 and 60 years ago few saw that coming. But, growth comes with cost, and Waukesha now faces the piper in regard to its water situation.

Springs in the landscape are, quite simply, places where groundwater reaches the ground surface. Groundwater is generally considered to feed most of our lakes and streams. This leads to a variety of issues related to lack of stream flow.  Groundwater is recharged by precipitation. However, as development occurs, in some instances groundwater instead of feeding streams and lakes is fed by the streams and lakes. This is thought to be happening in Madison, WI. With development, you get less recharge of groundwater than would exist in natural conditions due to impervious surfaces. But, don’t think that agriculture is the answer either, because a row crop infiltrates about as much rain water as a suburban yard. Yet, development, due to these impervious surfaces (e.g. pavement and buildings), also produces more runoff because less water is infiltrated or recharged and hence you get more flooding of streams and lakes. Detention basins exist to control the rate of release of runoff.  More recently recharge is required to assist in replacing groundwater lost to pumping. Yet, it can take years for recharged water to move to any significant depth into an aquifer, or move laterally.   Rain gardens have entered the popular lexicon, and they represent one method of groundwater infiltration and recharge. Infiltration requirements, which are fairly recent, only require up to 90% of the predevelopment rate be designed for this measure.  This means that 10% is not infiltrated.  There are also parcels exempted due to soil conditions. And, due to evapo-transpiration, not all infiltrated storm water runoff makes it way to the aquifer (i.e. recharge).

Waukesha and the Great Lake Watershed divide

Our aquifers, even with recharge, can be reduced by pumping. Wells pull groundwater out, and Waukesha, like other communities, is finding that its groundwater is being replaced at a rate slower than it is pulled out. Municipal wells.  Waukesha has seen a drop in its aquifer of over 500’ from 1900 to 2000. The level in their municipal wells is said to be dropping at 5’-9’ a year. (thi smay not be the whole aquifer, but what is known as the cone of depression taht forms near wells.)  One effect to reduce spring flow in Waukesha was not only development, and paving over the springs, but also the large limestone quarries from which many buildings in southeast Wisconsin were built. The quarries pump groundwater out so that it would not inhibit operations of going to greater depths. This would also draw down the water that fed the springs. Draw down has not only affected the springs, but also the quality of the groundwater. The deeper the water being pumped for municipal use, now at about 2000’ deep, the more radium the water contains. Radium is a naturally occurring element, and in Waukesha, it happens to be in concentrations too high for public health.

The problem Waukesha faced is that it is outside of the Lake Superior watershed. The hydrologic cycle is important to life, and one idea is that it is also important is to retain water in its own watershed. What Waukesha did have going for it is that part of Waukesha County is in the watershed, and more importantly, that part of the Lake Michigan groundwater shed is under the city of Waukesha. One report indicates that when the city of Waukesha no longer uses its wells, about 1.3 mgd of ground water will flow to Lake Michigan that is now intercepted by their deep wells.  Of course, this does not fully offset the 8.2 mgd Waukesha will use, but because the city will return treated effluent to Root Creek in Franklin, it is thought that it will be about even. There will be water loss due to plant and lawn watering, and other water not sent down the drain to the sewage treatment plant.

Pump out, pump back

This raises the issue of Waukesha’s laxity in water conservation. Waukesha not only had a long-standing water rate structure to reduce rates for the more water used, in a sense promoting water waste, it also credited water utility customers on some basis for water that did not go to the treatment plant. How they calculated the credit I do not know, because you would not be able to meter outfall of every sanitary sewer lateral, although it could compare winter use to summer use. Waukesha is part of the problem the human population continually faces--that we too often view our resources as abundant and conservation is not necessary. Water is the next oil.  All one has to do is live in the drought in California. Or live in Flint, MI where the water has too much lead. Or, live in Waukesha were the water has too much radium. In Waukesha the cheap upper level water has been used, probably a good deal wasted.

This past waste of water will now have an effect on Waukesha’s growth. It had requested to be able to withdraw 10.2 mgd of water for a much larger territory than it now serves. However, the Great lakes Compact requires the city to reduce its demand to 8.2mgd, and reduce its service territory to those customers already served, and town islands within the city itself. Waukesha’s mayor seems to recognize this new reality, as he said the approved compact “would set the [municipal] boundary for the foreseeable future.” He continued to say that “the future of Waukesha is redevelopment.” However, Waukesha has not been built in a compact manner, and it is used to having unbridled growth. As Lutgen has noted the structure of a place can shape political attitudes. Can
Waukesha now contain itself? On the plus side the planning literature contains many examples of densifying the suburban shopping mall and big box stores. New urbanists are continually creating new techniques for sprawl repair.  The question will be if city as a whole can make the required cultural and political shift to redevelopment from greenfield development.

Image of a cone of depression

Waukesha received approval to use Lake Michigan water on June 21, and is now looking for taxpayer dollars to fund about 20% of the cost of the obtaining and directing the water to Root Creek. That is another ironic twist in tself. A community which so strongly guarded its water from being piped (although had no qualms about shipping it in barrels or bottles over the nation) in 1891 will be asking taxpayers nationwide to pony up to help solve a water crisis part of their own making. Other nearby communities, it has been said, have been able to handle the radium in water issue without using Lake Michigan water. Waukesha did not have to use lake Michigan water, it could have used a reverse osmosis treatment process, but chose not to due to its cost. Waukesha’s past practice of lower
water bills for the more a customer used, development pattern and form, the pumping by its quarries have all played a role in its water woes, and to now ask taxpayers to foot 20 or more percent of a $187 to $200 million project cost seems to me to represent the hubris that helped get them into the water woes in the first place. That is the greater lesson for all, that our resources, as plentiful as they may seem, are subject to misuse and waste, and at some point securing a resource will become more costly, and even more difficult to obtain. The federal government to the rescue  The irony of it all.